“Tissue rejection, I'm afraid,” the man said behind him. “Now, let's check those stitches.”
David felt a slight pressure around his midsection as the man picked him up (rather easily, he thought) and walked over to the table.
“That, that thing...” David said. “It has my body.”
“And you,” the man in the lab coat said, “have his.”
He turned, and David caught his reflection in a dirty mirror... his eyes were both black, his skin ruddy. His body was covered in fur and four-legged.
“What the fuck have you done to me?” David cried out. “I'm a fucking dog!”
“You are alive is what you are, Jehovah,” the man replied. “Your body was too far gone, so I did the only thing I could to save you. As you can see, you fared better than your counterpart.”
The line between man and dog wasn't as fine as it was between dog and man. His head was attached at an angle so he would be able to look ahead, and it was disproportionate to the dog's body, which wasn't in the best of shape to begin with. The dog had obviously seen better days, and was extremely malnourished and covered in sores and open wounds.
“Why do you keep calling me Jehovah?” David asked.
“I didn't know your name, and you didn't have any ID on you,” the man replied. “So I gave you a name. Fitting, don't you think?”
Anger welled up in David, and he began kicking his legs, which were beginning to work better under his control. He kicked until the doctor loosened his grip, dropping him to the floor.
David didn't run this time, but turned, and with as much anger as a human-headed dog could muster, screamed, “Fucking fix it! Put my fucking head back on my body!”
“It's of no use,” the doctor said. “Your body is no longer viable, no longer an option.”
David tried to hang his head, to look away from the doctor, but found that the motion was beyond him.
“Then kill me,” was all he said.
“Now why would I do that?” the doctor said. “I didn't save you just to take it away.”
He was now gathering up notes and small vials of glowing green fluid. He continued, “You're to be my traveling companion, Jehovah. There are wonders beyond wonders beyond wonders, and we are to catalog them for future generations... assuming there is a future.”
He continued gathering up his belongings. The idea that a human-headed dog stood beside him seemed very normal.
“But,” David said, “I don't even know your name.”
“Herbert,” the doctor said. “Herbert West.”
Then he continued with the business at hand...
Our World Shall be Swept Clean from the Sky
The further away from Arkham they traveled, the more normal things became. They encountered a few survivors along the way, mostly in small shanty towns that seemed to sprout up almost overnight. Most of the people they spoke with seemed confused (as were Herbert and Jehovah) about what had happened, but life goes on, and they were making the best of it.There were no shrieks, no growls, and the only thing howling was the wind through the trees.Herbert found it calming after the events of the previous months, and he let it envelop him, take him away for a while. He didn't stray far, though, because silence didn't always mean safety... sometimes it meant surprise.Herbert swung his leg over a rotting branch and pulled himself up. It groaned, threatened to break, but held. Feeling secure, he sat and pulled a pair of binoculars from the duffle bag slung over his shoulder. Down below, Jehovah circled the tree, then lifted his leg and mock pissed on the trunk.“Instinct, I guess,” he said with a smile.
Herbert ignored him and looked over a slight rise in elevation that had blocked his view at ground level. Nestled in distant hills, like a canvas painted by angel feathers, a lone building hid itself behind an oasis of trees and tall grass.
A field of wild wheat, the stalks bent ever-so-slightly by an afternoon breeze, was the only thing between them and their new destination.
Even through the binoculars, the structure was impressive. Its stone façade was veined with ivy, weather-beaten, and ancient. The front door was small, and almost completely lost behind giant pillars that held up a sagging roof.
After scanning the surrounding area for activity, Herbert jumped from his perch and retrieved Jehovah’s leash.
"I still don't understand why I have to wear this thing," Jehovah said to him.
"We've already discussed this, Jehovah," Herbert replied. "You were... a bad dog."
"How many times do I have to tell you, dammit?! I'm not a dog, I'm your traveling companion," Jehovah returned, venom behind his words.
Herbert gave him a quick smile and tugged at the leash, but he was careful not to do so hard enough to separate his head from his body.
"Let's go, boy," he said as they went on their way. Herbert paused momentarily as he bent down to retrieve a military-issue flamethrower and canister that was leaning against the tree's trunk.
Herbert was happy to have leashed Jehovah, because his companion was completely lost in the stalks of wild wheat.
“Keep close, my friend,” he said.
“Do I have a choice?” the wheat replied.
As the hills began their rise, the wheat began to thin out, then disappear altogether. Lost in darkness, two-story panes of broken glass dominated the front of the building, but they only revealed the darkness within, so the building had not yet given up its secrets.
"What is this place?" Jehovah asked.
"I'm not sure, but it sure has piqued my interest," Herbert replied.
The building was in a state of total disrepair. Broken glass and boards filled the air with destructive complaints as they crossed the front porch, and the front doors fell in with the slightest touch.
The pair stood on the brink of darkness, and Herbert was the first to be swallowed whole. As he entered, he grabbed a termite-chewed board, and it broke free in his hand. Alongside the door—lit by sunlight through the barely translucent windows—he ripped a length of threadbare curtain from the bottom of the two-story window and wrapped it around the board.
Without stopping, he removed a box of matches from his duffle bag and lit the makeshift torch. The flickering flame revealed Jehovah coming up fast behind him, his eyes wide. The walls on either side of them were covered in rotting tapestries, telling tales of forgotten days. A huge statue of a Native American warrior sitting atop a headless horse dominated the front room. The head was nowhere in sight.
"So, what is this place?" Jehovah asked.
"You already asked me that once," Herbert said, clearly exasperated.
"Yes, but you didn't answer me," Jehovah explained.
"From the look of things,” Herbert said as he started across the space, "I would say it was a museum of some sort. Let's hope the most dangerous thing we run into is King Tut's Mummy."
Their footfalls echoed off the high ceilings, and unseen flying things fluttered in a panic. They entered a hall at the back of the room, stopping occasionally to investigate small rooms that opened on either side of it. The doors were located between paintings depicting everything from the Civil War to the Knights of the Round Table, and most of the rooms contained artwork, old weapons (would or could any of these be of use? Herbert thought), and suits of armor.
"What are we looking for?" Jehovah asked. "And why are we risking our lives looking for it here?"
Herbert ignored him and followed the flickering light. The hall opened up into a huge room. It was one of the largest either of them had ever seen, the unseen ceiling held aloft by marble columns stress-cracked by time and the weight they bore.
A look of shock crossed their faces when their eyes adjusted to the dim light afforded by Hebert’s torch. Before them, in rows that stretched into the dark, was row upon row of rusty hospital beds, each one adorned with a not-so-fresh corpse bound in a stained straitjacket, IVs still inserted into their emaciated arms.
"Now this looks interesting," Herbert said in passing. "It seems we ha
ve stumbled on a makeshift sanatorium."
He waved his torch from side to side and saw that the walls to each side of them had the same floor-to-ceiling windows as the front of the building, but they were covered in heavy cloth curtains that smothered even the smallest amount of light from entering.
“Jehovah, I need your help,” he said. “See if you can open the curtains on that side. I want to shine some light on our discovery.”
Jehovah took off (Herbert having dropped the leash some time ago) and began opening the curtains with his mouth. He grabbed a mouthful of cloth, then ran as fast as he could until the curtain slid across the curtain rod two stories up. Herbert paused to watch, just as Jehovah stopped to spit out a wad of fabric, like a cat coughing up a hairball.
Enough light had entered the room that Herbert was able to extinguish his torch, in turn making it easier for him to open the curtains on his side of the room.
The room awash in the sun's dirty glow, Herbert and Jehovah walked the rows of beds. Stopping to investigate a particular corpse, they noticed symbols painted on its straitjacket.
Jehovah did something surprising by jumping up onto the cadaver and looking Herbert in the face.
"What do you make of the flower—or whatever it is—painted on it?" he said.
"I'm not sure what to make of that," Herbert replied. "Someone's idea of a memorial, perhaps? It looks to be on most of them, too."
"So what do we do now?" he said, jumping down, and doing his best to look up at Herbert.
Again Herbert ignored him, as he attached the canister to what Jehovah had thought was a flamethrower.
"I think it's time we test my new reagent," he said.
"It's not mainlined into the vein like my old reagent,” he continued. “...but it should work wonders for mass re-animation."
"Are you sure this is a good idea, Herbert?" Jehovah asked, but it was too late.
Herbert was already donning a gas mask (he did not offer one to Jehovah) and going to work. He pulled the trigger on the flamethrower, and it spit forth a green mist that hung like a dense fog over the rows of dead bodies. Herbert worked mechanically, like a drone bee, until the whole room was saturated with reagent, Jehovah lost in the middle of it.
"I suggest we retreat to higher ground," Herbert said through the mask, as he moved towards a flight of spiral stairs that led to the second floor.
The second floor was a catch-all for museum items that had been hastily removed from the main floor—obviously to make room for the bed-ridden corpses that now resided there. Herbert knew there was no time to investigate, though, as the first of the corpses had already broken their bonds and began to thrash around.
The sound of beds being overturned and more bodies running about was proof that the new reagent worked, but the fact that it had was not necessarily a good thing, Jehovah thought.
“Herbert,” he said. “What have you done?”
“Created life where there was none,” he replied, “...and proved that my new reagent works.”
As of yet, none of the bodies had followed them up the stairs (if indeed they could accomplish such a task), but several had broken through the emergency exit at the back of the building and were fleeing into the light.
Herbert and Jehovah (who continually turned to watch the landing at the top of the stairs) had taken a place at one of the vast windows, and watched as the re-animated corpses spilled out into the field behind the museum.
Fascinating, Herbert thought to himself…
"Look at them…completely out of control of their own bodies,” he said, clearly having fun. “They are completely primal, bestial…"
Dozens of the formerly insane and formerly dead had now emptied out of the building and were now flowing through the wheat, their tattered straitjackets flowing behind them, like wraiths whose din made Jehovah's hair stand on end.
There were still several bodies moving around below them, so it was decided that they would block off the top of the stairs and rest for a while. After doing so, Herbert took a seat by the window, still fascinated by the tide of insanity he had unleashed.
Then he broke the silence...
"Jehovah," he yelled. "Brace yourself!"
"Brace myself for what?" he replied, but Herbert needn't reply, for he saw it through the window.
Even from a distance, the thing was massive; easily the largest living thing the Earth had ever known. They had watched one lay waste to an entire city once, weeks ago, from the safety of a cave, and Herbert had called it a Creeper, or Sky Sweeper, or some such. He always had a name for the unnamable. It was impossible to see the entire thing, even at a distance, but Herbert said they looked not unlike a "flying Portuguese Man o' War".
In their quest for food, Creepers would sweep the land, laying bare every landscape, every town, every thing. Their tentacles—many the diameter of a large tree—drug the ground, gathering up anything that could be used as food: trees, grass, animals, people and beast alike. Not a trace of anything organic would be left behind, the land essentially dead.
Several of them were on a collision course with the museum, their crests breaking through low-hanging clouds, flocks of birds feeding off debris (or parasites) stuck to their tentacles that were kicking up dust clouds of their own.
Herbert removed his binoculars, and through them, he could see cars and other detritus rolling over and over upon itself as the tentacles pushed it along.
Several of the re-animated dead had already succumbed to the Creepers, and the hills behind the pod were already a wasteland, devoid of anything, save for rocks and earth.
"Their movement is dependent on the wind, Jehovah, so we might just make it," Herbert said, but even he didn't sound like he believed it.
As the massive tentacles (grouped in the dozens) dragged the ground, they crushed many more of the wailing dead and uprooted trees, only to pick the items up and raise them to the waiting mouth hidden below the bulk of its body.
The first of the pod had already made it to the museum (the consequences of which were not lost on the two), and its tentacles crashed into the north corner of the building.
The walls began to buckle and the roof began to bow as the weight of the tentacles dragging up the side became too much.
"It's not going to hold, Jehovah," Herbert said as they headed for the stairs.
They made it to the bottom of the stairs as the wall collapsed and a section of the ceiling caved in. Beds were strewn about from the orgy of re-animation, and several corpses were still running around, oblivious to their surroundings.
A half-dozen of the larger tentacles had already fallen into the structure and were now collapsing the floor in the direction of the main hall. Herbert and Jehovah had only one chance as they made a move for the exit.
The floorboards began to splinter and beds piled up as the creature dragged through the building. The roof was almost completely gone, and Herbert took a second to look up, shielding his eyes from falling plaster and tiles. Up there, almost further than he could see with his naked eye, was the thing's mouth—a deep-set black hole ringed with smaller tentacles and rings of razor-sharp teeth descending in size.
Herbert and Jehovah burst through the exit as the building collapsed, the doorframe they came through the only thing left standing.
"This way!" Herbert yelled, as he ran across the barren rock and earth left behind by the Creepers.
Herbert slowed, realizing that they had taken the route already decimated by the pod, and turned to find Jehovah panting at his feet.
"They've stripped everything, Herbert. There's absolutely nothing left," Jehovah said, a look of bewilderment on his sunken face.
"That's their purpose, Jehovah; to cleanse. And they do it well,” he said, as they continued into nothing...
The Children of Doctor Kroh
The whip cracked like a lighting strike, hard and fast, the air parting, only to be filled with the sounds of pain and agony. Another strike and the room quickly cleared
, the door shutting behind those who had occupied it. The whip wielder stood in his lab coat and scrubs, hands shaking, his distorted visage more avian than man…It was Jehovah who first noticed the graffiti that read: Beware Dr. Kroh and the Melon Heads, and quipped, “The band is in town. Maybe we should check them out!”
“The power’s out,” Herbert replied, a slight smile on his face. “I hope they play acoustic.”
Herbert West and Jehovah had been traveling down a four-lane highway, the skeletons of ruined buildings haunting either side. For several hours, silence had ruled the night, and there was not a living thing in sight, but every crawling shadow seemed to be rife with their worst nightmares.
“Any idea where this road leads?” Jehovah asked.
“West,” was all Herbert had to say.
They continued for a time, neither speaking, both listening to the night. In the moonlight they saw what they took to be a heat mirage, which was odd since the sun was burning the other side of the globe, but there it was, looking like a wave of black felt rising and falling with the winds.
“What do you make of that, Jehovah?” Herbert asked. “It reminds me of a herd of tarantulas in the Arizona desert.”
“Let’s hope that it’s not. I can only imagine what passes for tarantulas in this godforsaken land,” Jehovah replied. “Maybe we should go around it.” But it was obvious that Herbert wasn’t interested in a detour.
The pockmarked asphalt made walking difficult at times, but it was inevitable that the two groups would collide, and from the looks of things, Jehovah was sure they were going to come out on the losing end.
As the mass moved closer, Herbert and Jehovah could make out dozens of short beings in tattered, dark robes, their faces obscured by low-hanging hoods. Their oddest feature, as far as they could tell, was that each of them had what seemed to be fully functional black-feathered wings.
Several of the figures at the fore of the group, they could see, were armed with four-foot spears curved slightly and tipped with metal talons. The armed robes were fully a foot taller than the rest, and, from the looks of their weapons, were ready to remove a man's face.
Re-Animated States of America Page 4
